Flu season strikes BISD
By Nathan Straus News Reporter

Brownsboro Independent School District started February with empty buildings Friday, February 1. A campuswide sick day was called due to almost a fifth of the students being out with the flu or other sicknesses.

Vickie York, assistant superintendent for BISD, said 18 percent of the student body had fallen victim to either the flu bug or a stomach virus or other illness by Thursday, January 31.

"We only had an 82 percent attendance rate that day," York said. "This is across the campuses."

Jennifer Settle, principal of Brownsboro Intermediate School, said her school had suffered a massive attendance hit.

"We had 37 percent of the student body absent from a combination of the flu and a stomach virus, and most of the kids had a high fever," Settle said.

Of the 315 students enrolled at BIS, 114 of them were out sick that Thursday.

York said the decision to close the schools on Friday was made Thursday afternoon.

"For the district 18 percent out sick is huge," York also said. "The principals had been talking about closing the schools all week, so we decided to close on Friday."

The decision was made, York said, to allow the students to get well and to stop the spread of the virus.

Settle said a similar situation happened last year during flu season.

"Last year we had a few days from flu season," Settle said. "I don't know whether or not the children are getting flu shots."

Settle also said more sick days are possible with flu season still ongoing, but added she hoped another sick day would not occur.

"It's hard on the teachers with that many out," Settle said. "They have to repeat classes and progress is slow. The nurses are also very busy."

York said the school has not decided when the sick day will be made up. There are two days chosen by the school as bad weather days: April 18 and May 30. In the event of an off day due to bad weather or other circumstances, the students will go to school on one of those two days.

York also said if the school has more off days than it has bad weather days then the school is under no obligation to make all the off days up so long as it makes up two; the two replacing the bad weather dates.